


Gut Feeling

by StopTalkingAtMe



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Captivity, Elements of Horror, M/M, Rescue, blood-drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:20:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25666573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/pseuds/StopTalkingAtMe
Summary: “Whatever happens to me, kill them. I want those bastards dead for what they’ve done. Promise me.”For a moment, Reid’s face remained impassive, then he gave a sharp nod. “I swear it.”
Relationships: Geoffrey McCullum/Jonathan Reid
Comments: 6
Kudos: 103
Collections: Rare Pairs Exchange 2020





	Gut Feeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wednesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/gifts).



Even unconscious, McCullum heard the gunshot. Heard it and resisted the urge to wake, because he knew what’d be waiting for him when he did. The pain never quite went away, even when he was asleep: it coloured the edges of everything he saw and felt, a warning and a promise, a constant reminder of suffering yet to come. He’d heard it was impossible to feel pain in dreams. As it turned out that was a lie.

So instead he let himself drift, let his unconscious mind weave the gunshot into the fabric of his dreams so that he felt the weight of the gun in his hand, so much heavier than he’d expected, so heavy he’d had to use two hands to hold it steady while his brother crouched, staring at him with terror which had to have been feigned because that repulsive thing wasn’t his brother any more and monsters couldn’t feel fear, and if they didn’t feel fear then it stood to reason they couldn’t feel love either–

 _McCullum_.

The gunshot might not have been enough to wake him, but the sound of his name did. It dragged him back to consciousness, kicking and screaming every inch of the way. He would have plunged right back under if it was in his power to do so. Anything to escape from the pain that gripped him without respite the moment he surfaced.

His eyes flickered open and the barest glimmer of light sent a stab of pain shooting through his skull, so fierce he squeezed his eyes shut and almost cried out in pain before he remembered not to give them the satisfaction. He rolled away, the chain around his throat catching and choking off his breath for an instant before he clawed back some slack.

If that was sunlight… if they’d turned him, made him one of them, a filthy leech…

 _Merciful Christ, no,_ he thought, resisting the urge to sob. Instead he reached for his rage, gathering it all up, every scrap, and screamed in fury into the filthy mattress, barely aware of the presence looming over him.

“McCullum? Dear God, what have they done to you?”

Reid’s voice.

Carefully, he turned his head, the stiffened muscles of his neck aching. There was barely enough light to see by – and it wasn’t sunlight – but the silhouette of the figure kneeling by the mattress was large and solid enough to be the doctor.

Except that McCullum wasn’t fool enough to trust his eyes. This wasn’t the first time Reid, or something wearing his face, had appeared before him in this squalid hovel. And it wasn’t just Reid either. They were inventive, the Ekons who’d kept him imprisoned: they liked to experiment. They’d rifled through his mind and memories, sifted through them in search of anything they could use, and stirring up memories both good and bad. The latter had, of course, been far more numerous, but they’d used both, tormenting him with the bad memories and poisoning the precious few moments of joy he’d had throughout his life.

His mother, who’d cradled him in her arms and sang a lullaby which very nearly had him weeping. And Ian, a boy once more, the way he’d been long before his death twice over, moving like his joints were all in the wrong place and his teeth too sharp. Slick with the reddish grave dirt of the shallow grave he’d been buried in. Retching it up and spitting clots of the stuff on the ground like tubercular phlegm.

 _It’s cold in the ground, Geoffrey,_ he’d said, his eyes too large for his face. Luminous green eyes. Like the eyes of a fox shining in the night. _It’s lonely there. I don’t like it._

(Eldritch had dug that grave. An act of kindness that was rare for him, while McCullum had shivered at the sidelines, trying not to cry. Eldritch had dug that grave, but it had been McCullum who’d filled it in.)

And Lisa, one of the Guard of Priwen who’d been with him when they’d been ambushed. Lisa, who’d lost all her family to the leeches and come to him because she hadn’t anywhere else to go. They’d turned her right in front of him. Made him watch as one of them gripped the sides of her skull, holding her fast while another forced his forearm against her mouth, and while McCullum had screamed and fought and bellowed, a chain had been looped around his throat, choking off his promises of retribution, of how he was going to rip them to shreds with his bare hands if he had to.

They’d left her crumpled on the ground then, chained up just like he was, and it had been so dark he couldn’t see the moment when she died, but he heard it, heard the last rattle of her breath as her lungs stopped. And he heard the moment when she came back too. He’d been waiting for it, his nails biting into his palm to stop himself from falling asleep. Heard the catch in her breath, a low moan of agony and desperate all-consuming hunger. Terror too, at waking up and not knowing who or what or where she was. He hadn’t thought he could hate the leeches any more than he had already, but that they could do that to one of their _own_ …

It was a mercy, so he’d told himself, as he’d wrapped the chain around her throat, while she’d scrabbled and spat at him, flecking his hands with spittle, but it hadn’t felt much like mercy. Not with the muscles of his arms screaming from the effort of keeping her from breaking free and biting him. And not when her intensifying hunger brought back just enough of her humanity to make her sly and cruel, whispering to him, telling him terrible things until she went still and silent. Eventually they came and took her away, and when she came back, he was pretty sure it wasn’t really her. He hoped to God she’d found some peace.

Reid was the worst, though. They played out the battle at the hospital again and again, and robbed of his weapons and the precious blood of King Arthur, McCullum didn’t have a prayer. Again and again, they fought, and again and again McCullum was defeated. At least when it had happened for real, there’d been a glimmer of consolation that he’d lost to Reid, who fought fluidly and with grace, like spilled-ink-made-flesh.

This version of Reid hadn’t fought like that at all: he’d been brutal, savage. Knocking McCullum to the ground with swipes of his forearm, and tearing at him with teeth and claws. Afterwards he’d sing, the same song McCullum’s mother used to sing, made obscene in the mocking baritone coming from the mouth of this thing that was not Dr Reid, each word a dagger poisoned with spite.

Reid was the worst, but there was a sick sort of relief to it too. It was easier to see him as a monster, finally succumbing to his true nature. It made things simpler. Maybe it would put an end to the treacherous little voice that kept pointing out how well they fought together. An intricate, deadly dance, with Reid seeming to know the moves McCullum would make before he made them.

Once, at the end of a battle, McCullum had been left with his arm dislocated at the shoulder. Reid had coolly and methodically braced him against the wall and wrenched the socket of his joint back into place. His face had been so close McCullum could smell the iron on his breath. And it occurred to him, in that brief agonising moment, just before Reid’s gaze shifted up to meet his, that it wouldn’t take much to kiss him; he’d barely have to move his head an inch before their lips would meet. Afterwards McCullum had told himself it had just been a way to distract himself from the pain.

He wasn’t used to lying to himself. He didn’t like it.

The Ekons hadn’t used that memory yet. He had a horrible feeling that they were saving it for a special occasion. His birthday, maybe. Or Christmas.

No matter what the Ekons did, they’d been careful not to kill him or harm him beyond repair. Not nearly so much fun if you broke your toys before you were done with them. So far, anyway; he guessed they’d take it too far one of these days, and probably sooner rather than later. They were getting worse. Crueller. He just hoped to God that when they went too far, they wouldn’t decide to turn him.

He closed his eyes, turning his face away from Reid. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. “You’re not real.”

“I’m afraid I am,” Reid said distractedly. The chains rattled, and McCullum felt the metal bite deep into his throat, a painful last minute reminder before it fell away, ripping the scabs at his throat free with a little needle-sharp stab of agony that made his eyes water. He gritted his teeth, bit down hard on the tip of his tongue until the taste of blood flooded his mouth. Not giving them the satisfaction, he thought, but it was too late: hope had already flared in his heart. Which would only make it all the more painful when the bastard revealed his true purpose.

“Have you come to torment me, leech?”

“As a matter of fact,” Reid said with heavy irony, “I’ve come to rescue you.”

Something slammed against the door. McCullum jumped, his gaze snapping towards it.

At some point, while he’d been unconscious, someone had dragged a dresser in front of the door. They were inventive, he’d give them that, but this was new.

He looked back at Reid, opening his mouth to speak, then took a closer look. There was something wrong about the way he was holding himself, hunched up with an arm clasped over his belly. McCullum’s nostrils flared, catching the scent of blood. It was an odour he’d grown very used to during his confinement, and it wasn’t as if he’d been unacquainted with it beforehand, but there was something distinctive about the scent of Reid’s blood. He remembered it from the hospital, rich and dark, and more than that: how the smell of it had made his mouth dry when Reid leaned over him at the end, still reeking of it though he’d stopped bleeding by then. McCullum had dreamed of that moment afterwards, of Reid, not killing him or freeing him or even turning him, but fucking him, right there and then, on floorboards stained with their mingled blood.

It had made things pretty damned awkward at times.

“What happened to you?” he said, as the leeches outside continued to bang so hard against the door it shook in its frame. For the moment, the dresser looked like it was going to hold.

“I’m afraid your… hosts took exception to my attempt to steal you away,” Reid said. He gripped his shirt, and pulled it up. It was a gut shot, one that would have doomed a mortal man to a slow and painful death, and would significantly slow down an Ekon until they had the chance to rest and feed. Beneath the splayed fingers of his other hand, the wound spread wider, the blood so dark it was almost black, glimmering wetly in the dim light. It was sticky, half-coagulated. Repellent. And McCullum’s mouth went dry at the sight of it. “I can’t say I think much of the company you’ve been keeping, McCullum.”

“Their hospitality’s lacking, I can tell you that much. Are you armed?”

Reid produced his service revolver with a grim expression. “Out of bullets.”

_Damn._

Reid’s voice shifted to one of concern. “Do you think you can stand? You’ve lost a great deal of blood.”

“I can stand,” he said grimly, although in truth he wasn’t altogether sure he could. But right now he wasn’t going to take no for an answer from anyone or anything, least of all his own body. He set his hands on the mattress, reluctantly accepted Reid’s outstretched hand after a moment’s hesitation, and pushed himself up.

It was like a chasm opening up in his skull, the world somersaulting and stretching away ahead of him, bleeding black at the edges.

His legs crumpled, and Reid caught him, his body solid as a bulwark despite his wound and Reid’s shudder of something that had to be pain. The smell of his blood wasn’t helping, so sweet McCullum’s mouth was already watering. He couldn’t remember the last time the leeches had brought him water – but they’d fed him, dripped their blood into his mouth a single, scant droplet at a time. Not enough to turn him – their bloodlines were too weak for that – but enough that he’d get the taste, and the wave of thirst that struck him, clenching tight around his throat, was almost overwhelming.

Weakly, he tried to shove Reid away. “I said I can stand,” he insisted, even though by now it was quite clear that he couldn’t. Reid’s arms wrapped around his back, steadying him.

“Of course you can. I’m just not so certain about me,” Reid said, and it was so clearly bullshit that McCullum laughed bitterly into his chest at the kindness he didn’t deserve.

Although maybe it wasn’t really a kindness at all, no matter how Reid meant it. Because pressed against Reid’s chest the smell of his blood was so thick McCullum could very nearly taste it, and he was already parting his lips to breathe the scent into his mouth. When he realised he was salivating, he pressed his lips together and wrenched his face away with a shudder. And he still didn’t pull away until he felt the weight of Reid’s hand resting between his shoulder blades.

“How long have I been gone?” he asked, thinking the answer was going to be a week, maybe two.

“Seven weeks.”

McCullum considered this. Decided, finally, that coming to terms with it could wait. “The others who were with me...”

“As far as I can tell, you’re the only one left.”

McCullum closed his eyes. He’d known, of course. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. Three other men and one woman. All dead or worse. And no one to blame but himself.

The Ekons were still hammering on the door. From the sounds of it, they were taking it in turns to fling themselves bodily against it, but just as he was about to suggest finding something to arm themselves with – a pointless gesture: he already knew there was nothing that would help – they abruptly stopped. Outside in the corridor the floorboards creaked. Reid lifted his head, eyes searching the air in a way that suggested he was using his preternatural senses to calculate their odds. By the expression on his face, they weren’t good.

“How many?” McCullum asked.

Reid glanced at him, his mouth tightening. “That’s not important now–”

“ _How many_?”

Reid sighed. “Three of them in the corridor. Another two deeper in the house.”

Five. Even if neither of them was wounded those weren’t good odds. As it was...

An emphatic clearing of a throat, then the thin reedy voice of the Ekon’s leader called through the door, twisted with malice. “Good evening, Dr Reid. Such a pleasant surprise. If I’d known you were coming I’d have laid on tea and biscuits. Not that you’d partake, of course, but it is the thought that counts, is it not?”

“Friend of yours?” McCullum muttered.

“Edward Carnegie. And he’s an acquaintance,” Reid said grimly. “I believe he’s a member of the Ascalon Club. What the _hell_ have you been getting yourself into, McCullum?”

“Are you hungry, Dr Reid?” the Ekon called again. “I expect you’ve lost a lot of blood tonight.”

Unwillingly, McCullum glanced up at Reid when he growled deep in his throat. The shadows cast his face into sharp relief. Clearly, Carnegie wasn’t wrong.

“Still you can always be hungrier,” the Ekon continued. “You killed two of ours, doctor, and I take exception to that. One was a very close friend. Someone very dear to my heart. We’re going to bleed you dry, Dr Reid. Bleed you dry and starve you and lock you in chains there in the darkness until you rip your dear friend’s throat out. I do so very much hope he was worth it.”

“Can you fight them?” McCullum asked, his voice low. Reid’s jaw tightened, and he knew the answer.

The Ekons had grown bored of waiting for a reply, and began to slam against the door again. The wood splintered inwards, the door shuddering on its hinges.

“I’ll take some of them out,” Reid said, and the flat bleak rage in his voice sent a chill shiver down McCullum’s spine. It made him glad, for once, that he didn’t exactly count Reid amongst his enemies these days. Then he thought of what was going to happen when they came through that door. To him, and to Reid, and a fist of dread squeezed tight around his heart.

Something else Eldritch had taught him: that sometimes survival was just a matter of taking the next step, digging in and dragging yourself onwards without thinking too hard about what you were having to do and praying you’d survive long enough to kill a couple more.

“You can’t kill all of them,” he said. His voice sounded distant, almost numb.

Reid, not listening, cast him a despairing glance. “Some rescue,” he said in a faint sad tone of apology.

McCullum ignored him in turn. “But if you’d _fed_...” His voice didn’t quite sound like his own.

Reid went still. McCullum was very deliberately not meeting his gaze, but he could see Reid staring at him in the corner of his eye. And maybe it was because he wasn’t looking at Reid directly that he could see the tangle of emotions crossing Reid’s face: fear, pain, disgust. And strongest of all, a hunger too immense to be kept contained, so powerful McCullum felt an echo of it inside his skull. Then Reid was clamping down tight on it, drawing that emotionless mask back over his features.

“ _No._ It’s absolutely out of the question. Look at yourself, McCullum. You barely have enough blood left as it is.”

McCullum gripped his arm and all but spat in his face. “Then break my fucking neck and put me out of my misery.”

Reid stared at him.

It was, McCullum thought, probably the first time he’d seen Reid at a loss since the Pembroke. At another impact against the door, Reid’s face snapped around, his lips peeling back from his teeth. When he turned back, his face looked sharper, more predatory. More like a monster.

“If I start...” Reid hesitated, and seemed to have to force himself to continue. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”

“And if you don’t even try, then we’ll both die. Just promise me one thing.”

Reid stayed silent, eyeing him.

“Whatever happens to me, kill them. I want those bastards dead for what they’ve done. Promise me.”

For a moment, Reid’s face remained impassive, then he gave a sharp nod. “I swear it.”

_Just don’t think too hard._

McCullum gripped his shirt collar and yanked it down. “Do it,” he said through gritted teeth. Another slam against the door. The scrape of tortured wood against wood, as the dresser legs scraped against the floorboards. And Reid started towards him, then stopped so abruptly McCullum might have thrown a punch at him in frustration if he hadn’t been too weak. “Do it!” he snapped, realised belatedly that he was shaking. _Oh Christ_ , he thought. Flinched when Reid caught hold of his hand. He began to protest, but Reid only pushed something into it and squeezed his hand into a fist around it. A stake. And when Reid stepped closer, he set the sharpened end over his own chest, above his heart.

“In case I can’t stop,” he said. McCullum could have laughed in his face. Like he’d have the strength. A pretty enough sentiment, but just as meaningless as Reid sparing him in the hospital. Just because a leech chose once not to kill didn’t mean he wasn’t a killer. Still, there was something in the gesture which got him thinking of Eldritch again, how he’d once set a pistol in McCullum’s hands and taught him to shoot with the infinite hard-edged patience that only a hunter of monsters could show. “McCullum...”

He bent his head to the side, baring his neck. “Spare me, Reid,” he said in as withering a tone as he could manage. His voice was shaking. “Just do it. Now. Before it’s too late.” Before he lost his courage. Before they came through the door.

There was an awful gentleness about the way Reid cupped McCullum’s cheek and adjusted the angle of his head, but it was the way he sucked in his breath when he saw the state of McCullum’s throat, all the bites old and new. McCullum couldn’t bear it, focused instead on Reid’s cool breath on his skin. He tried to remember the first time he’d met Reid, Swansea’s office and his awful dawning realisation that however foolish he’d thought Swansea could be when it came to leeches, he hadn’t even come close. But then that got him thinking about what he’d done to Swansea, and so he found himself thinking of Reid instead: all the times he’d caught Reid watching him, all the times he’d caught himself watching Reid. Wondering sometimes if there could ever have been a time when they might have been friends. He’d never been able to see how: the world didn’t work that way.

The bite hurt, at first. Hurt in a way that he hadn’t really been expecting it to. When the other Ekons had fed on him, they’d clawed their way through his mind, forcing him to like it. At least Reid spared him that.

In the midst of the splintering pain, a memory surfaced: Reid gripping McCullum’s jaw, his face alight with righteous fury while McCullum braced himself for a retribution that never came. Well, it was here now. He’d been waiting for it. Neither one of them could deny what they were any more: Reid the monstrous leech, and McCullum, a frightened boy cowering before shadows. All they’d ever been.

The pain never quite went away, but it lost its exquisite sharpness, softening to a bone-deep ache that kept rolling onwards, threading along his veins, following the bones of his ribcage, until he could feel it in every part of his body: blood, bones, skin. It never quite went away, but something else was rising, drowning it out, a rising tide of pleasure so intense he could taste it in the back of his throat, feel it thrumming beneath his skin. He shivered, his hairs standing on end, while the warm, liquid arousal pooled in his belly and groin.

And Reid kept feeding. Even with McCullum harder than he’d ever been in his life, grinding himself up against Reid’s thigh. He couldn’t even blame Reid for it: he’d learnt the signs of an Ekon rooting around in his skull, and his thoughts were untouched. This was all him, and despite the stab of shame he felt, he couldn’t seem to make himself stop.

He’d all but forgotten the squalid room, the leeches ripping at the door, spitting invective at them, there was nothing but Reid and McCullum and the world breaking apart at the edges. He could hear his own voice, pleading, begging Reid to stop, not to stop, _oh God, please don’t stop_.

He dropped his head back still further, until the vertebrae at the top of his spine ached, his fingers buried in Reid’s hair, very nearly forgetting how revolting this act was.

He’d always felt nothing but contempt for the people who found themselves victims of leeches not out of bad luck, but because they were searching for exactly this, out of some sick desire to be fed on, or because they hoped if they pleased their masters they’d be turned themselves. And maybe, _maybe_ , the reason he’d always hated people like that was because some dirty little part of himself had always secretly longed for it.

He remembered his brother, how the hope in Ian’s eyes had given way to fear and hurt at the betrayal. The pistol Eldritch had placed in his hand. And how he hadn’t known he was going to do it until he did. It was always like that the first time, Eldritch said when McCullum told him afterwards, but what McCullum hadn’t shared was that when his brother had begged him to come with him, part of him had wanted to do it.

Even then he’d had a feeling that Eldritch’s answer would have been the same: it was always like that the first time. Everyone considered it, even if just for a second or two. They’d be lying if they claimed otherwise. But while killing leeches got easier, turned out the other, the aching curiosity, that never quite went away. You never quite stopped wondering if you’d made the right choice, never quite stopped thinking _what if_.

Maybe Reid was in his mind after all.

“Oh sweet Christ...” McCullum gasped, close to passing out. “Wait… No more.”

No response.

Reid wasn’t going to stop.

McCullum’s grip tightened on the stake, but he’d been right about it being little more than an affectation. He didn’t have the strength to use it. So he gripped Reid’s hair with his other hand, meaning to rip Reid away. Except that instead he pulled him closer, pressing Reid’s face harder against his throat while he ground himself against Reid’s thigh.

The orgasm hit him out of nowhere, so intense his knees crumpled. As he sagged, Reid caught him and followed him down, dropping to one knee like a man about to propose.

An endless chasm of darkness opened at his feet. McCullum, his vision swimming, could feel Reid at the edges of his mind, like the darkness bleeding at the edges of his vision. It was a glimpse into what Reid really was, blood and shadow twined together in a human form, sorrow and rage and regret so tightly knitted together they could never be untangled.

Reid’s hand tightened over his. squeezing McCullum’s fingers tight around the stake. At the same time, he bit deeper, clamping his jaws tight like a terrier unwilling to relinquish the rat in its jaws. But it was Reid who guided McCullum’s hand and lent him the strength to grind the stake into Reid’s chest, forcing the point into the meat of his own flesh until he broke away, panting.

McCullum had just enough time to register that Reid’s breath was hot now, warmed by his life’s blood, and then he collapsed. Reid caught him and lowered him to the ground. He did so as gently as he could, although there was something about the way his fingers had tightened into claws that made McCullum think he hadn’t quite drunk his fill.

 _If he had, I’d be dead_ , he thought numbly, his eyes drifting closed until Reid sharply saying his name forced him to open them again.

Reid was staring down at him, his face pallid white and his eyes, despite their scarlet colour, filled with concern. Seeing McCullum’s eyes open, he gave a sharp sigh of relief and pressed their foreheads together. His lips and chin were streaked with blood, so much blood he was drunk on it. Then, he cupped McCullum’s cheeks and kissed him.

McCullum couldn’t pull away, wouldn’t have, even if he had the strength, even though he could taste his own blood on Reid’s lips and tongue. It was Reid who had to break the kiss, his hand on McCullum’s chest, pushing him down, gently but firmly. In his expression, McCullum could see the two halves of his nature competing, the creature of blood and shadow tempered by whatever was left of his humanity. Neither one of them could truly be sure how much of that there was.

“McCullum–”

“ _Kill_ _them_.” He forced every scrap of loathing that he could gather into his voice, and when Reid touched his cheek, McCullum knocked his hand away. He did it again the second time, and saw something harden in Reid’s face. He bared his teeth and they were as pink as his blood-tainted eyes.

“If you get the chance,” Reid said, his voice low, “then get the hell out of here.”

As the first of the Ekons crashed through the door, a gunshot rang out. Reid was no longer there, moving as fast as smoke in the instant before the bullet buried itself in the floorboards. Keeping the stake close, McCullum rolled onto his hands and knees and scrambled for shelter tat the edge of the room. Using the wall for support, he rose to his feet as his vision adjusted to the change of light in the room, and tried to follow the tide of blood and slaughter all around him, almost too fast for human eyes to follow.

More gunshots, the deafening sounds accompanied by muzzle-flashes, blinding after he’d spent so long in the darkness.

He found it offensive, somehow, the thought of leeches using firearms. It meant they were learning. Half his job – and Swansea’s too, for all his starry-eyed dreams of fraternisation with the leeches – was figuring out ways of closing the gap between the capabilities of the dead and the living. It was a relentless arms race, one that could only be won, and only ever temporarily, by the most ruthless and devious. If he stopped running, he’d be dead.

One of the Ekons slammed against the wall beside him, its head twisted at an unnatural angle. It looked like it had been mauled by a tiger.

Run, Reid had said, but he didn’t have the chance. Another couple of Ekons crowded the doorway, waiting for their turn or holding off until they had a better idea of the way the battle would turn. Either way, there was no escape, and it almost came as a relief: it meant he wouldn’t have to find out the answer to the question of whether or not he had it in himself to abandon Reid.

 _This is what happens when you think of them as people,_ Eldritch was in his mind telling him. _All you can do is kill as many of them as you can._ _No exceptions._

Reid and the Ekon’s leader – Carnegie, the Ascalon bastard – were circling each other warily, each waiting for their chance. Carnegie had the look of an angry cat which had puffed itself up to look twice as big. He was surrounded by a cloud of glistening scarlet tendrils, which both acted as a shield and made it harder to judge his exact position. In comparison, Reid looked vulnerable, and judging by his pallor he was weakening. His wound had been too severe, and just as McCullum had suspected, he hadn’t taken enough blood. He was going to lose. It had all been for nothing.

A tendril of slick wet redness streaked out and slashed across Reid’s chest, opening him up in a spray of borrowed blood.

McCullum swore. He was moving before he realised he was going to, shoving himself away from the wall and bringing up the stake. One of the Ekons shrieked in warning, but he had already plunged into the cloud of reeking scarlet droplets. His strike was misjudged, ill-timed. The stake caught on Carnegie’s ribs, and was yanked out of his hand as Carnegie spun and slapped him away with a blow powerful enough to send him flying across the room.

He struck the wall and crumpled. Saw Carnegie coming towards him, his face contorted with rage while the tendrils of mist gathered for one final strike. When they lashed towards him it felt like being dashed in the face with a bucket of blood. One coiled around his throat, choking off his air, and yanked him upwards, crushing him against the wall with his feet barely touching the floor.

Then Reid was there, rising up behind Carnegie, gripping the stake and twisting, forcing it deeper. Carnegie jolted with a choking sound, his eyes flaring wide.

The tendril of mist collapsed, drenching McCullum’s shirt with blood, and he fell, hitting the floor just as hard as he had the wall. There was an insistent stabbing pain in his chest that suggested he’d broken a couple of ribs, and he couldn’t quite breathe freely, but it was almost worth it just to see Carnegie’s expression of shock as he dropped to his knees, grasping weakly at his chest. Then he fell forwards and lay still.

McCullum’s vindication was short-lived. They weren’t done yet.

One of the Ekons in the corridor made a bolt for it. The other lingered a moment or two, staring in horror at his dead master, but then his gaze flicked up to Reid. For a moment or two he teetered on the brink of joining the fray, but came down firmly on the side of gutless cowardice when Reid swung towards him. He too fled. And Reid, the _bastard_ , instead of taking chase, stepped over Carnegie’s corpse and came towards McCullum.

You promised, McCullum thought, and he twisted away, trying to tell Reid that he was wasting his fucking time with him while the Ekons were getting away, but his words weren’t coming out properly, and with every word he spoke there was a stabbing pain in his chest that took his breath away.

“Kill them,” he said, and, “It’s over,” Reid replied, and McCullum wanted to spit at him that it wasn’t over, it could never be over, not so long as there were still leeches in the world.

“They can wait,” Reid told him as he gently tilted McCullum’s head to one side, checking over the wound.

The great benevolent doctor. Never one to pass up the chance to play the saviour to the unwashed masses of the West End. McCullum would have bet he’d never once looked too closely at his true motivations for selecting as his patients the most vulnerable, the people least likely to be missed. Like McCullum. Right now.

“Going to bite me again?” McCullum demanded, but when Reid gave him a look, he felt a savage twist of shame.

Reid had had his chance to kill McCullum twice now and he’d stopped. McCullum had known he wouldn’t be able to stop feeding once he’d started – Christ, even _Reid_ hadn’t believed he’d be able to stop, but he’d confounded both their expectations. He’d stopped himself, and not for the first time. He’d spared McCullum twice over.

Helpless, McCullum placed his hand against Reid’s chest where his once-impeccably tailored shirt hung in tatters. The place where the stake had drilled into Reid’s flesh had healed over. It was little more than a livid bruise now, but Reid still winced when McCullum’s hand brushed against it. Reid’s chest was cool to the touch, but McCullum could almost imagine there really was a heart beating somewhere under there.

“I didn’t mean...” McCullum stopped, at a loss as to what to say. He hesitated, and then, figuring that he was just light-headed from loss of blood, and that he could always blame it on that afterwards, he tugged Reid closer.

It wasn’t much of a kiss, nothing like the way Reid had kissed him, that thing of blood and desperation that he could still feel on his bruised lips. Nor did he really expected Reid to respond, but he did, his lips opening to McCullum’s for an instant before he pulled away. That too, it seemed, could wait, and if McCullum hadn’t been in no fit state to argue, he might have sworn.

At least until Reid brought McCullum’s hand up to his mouth and kissed his wrist. His lips were parted, and McCullum felt the gentle touch of his tongue against the skin and tendons. A light touch, but a shiver rippled through him and it was as if the pain of his battered body momentarily eased away. Even if there was still part of him, a bitter little voice, whispering that Reid was tasting him, that he was, at the end, still little better than a beast. But twice he’d had the chance to kill McCullum, and twice he’d held back. How many more times was he going to have to prove himself?

Reid draped his arm across his shoulder, and straightened up. The pain returned in full force then, but it was worth it. “Let’s go home,” Reid said, and McCullum was too exhausted to do anything but agree.

And while he might not have know what the hell this was, or what it could be, or what it said about the war he’d been fighting almost all his life, but it wasn’t like there was anything else he could do but lean against Reid and trust in him and have faith in his gut feeling that things would be simpler in the morning.

It wasn’t like they could get any more complicated.


End file.
